Dementia care and Dad

Went to see Dad today, in the dementia care home where he lives in Glasgow. I hadn't seen him for a few weeks, what with holidays and snowy roads. It was nice to spend time with him, although he fell asleep once or twice. But we were in the lounge, so that gave me a chance to chat to some of the care staff, and get to know some of the other residents a bit more. The staff work so hard and with such good humour to give the residents good care, and as best a standard of life as they can. Sometimes their job is hilariously like herding cats, but they invariably give each resident individual, personal attention, and because of that, respect and dignity.

Dementia care is in the news again today, although in hospitals rather than care homes. Apparently two-thirds of NHS hospital staff in England and Wales say they feel they lack the skills to care properly for patients with dementia. I'm not surprised. Our experience, although in Scotland, has been just that. Dad's ended up in hospital twice, and although I can't fault at all the critical care he got - they saved his life at least once - I can't say the same for his day-to-day care. During a 6 week spell in hospital his weight dropped from 10 to 7.5 stone, because he couldn't feed himself, and the nurses didn't feed him. Getting any information out of the doctors was like getting blood from a stone - everything was told directly to Dad, who of course didn't understand it and couldn't tell us. Mum was even scolded by the ward sister for reading his medical chart, because it was 'confidential' - when it was the only way for her to find out about his condition and treatment. Like the fact that they were dosing him with Haloperidol, an antipsychotic drug, to keep him quiet and manageable (which was why he couldn't feed himself). We still feel guilty that we didn't step in earlier, but we naively assumed he was being properly looked after. It was only afterwards we realised that if we'd been more demanding, asked more questions, he might have had better care. 

Hopefully, now that these issues are being more widely recognised, things will start to improve. It's not rocket science, but by making a few simple changes to training and procedures, hospital patients who also have dementia could get much better care without their families having to nag and demand and be generally awkward.

We won't see Dad at Christmas this year. It's going to be the first time he won't see his family on Christmas Day. Feels like a milestone. I don't think he'll mind; he doesn't know what time of year it is, and the staff at the home always try hard to make Christmas special. But I'll miss him. Merry Christmas, Dad.